Navy IX continued; Butterball & Mary the Wave

These are two things in my Navy period of my life that just do not fit in other things I have told or plan to tell.

One night I went out alone to see a movie in nearby Lakewood, New Jersey.

Before the movie I stopped at a roadside bar and picked out a stool at the bar with two or three empty stools beside me. Before I finished my beer a man and woman came in and sat down on the two unoccupied stools next to me. Within view was a something like a video jukebox which were becoming popular at bars in New Jersey at the time. I know the E.M. Club at one. I don’t know why they didn’t catch on.

The lady next to me told me it was her and her husband’s 25th wedding anniversary. The man, a tall slim guy, didn’t have anything to say. I congratulated him and then him. He didn’t recognize my congratulations, he just kept watching the music videos.

Sometime during her talks she told me her husband was a farmer and worked along all the time and he had a hard time conversing with people.

She went on to say that she wanted him to dance with her but he doesn’t like to dance. I was very positive and said some people just don’t care to dance but the important thing was that they were still married after 25 years. She looked at me like she would like to throw her drink in my face.

“You dance with her Butterball!” The man said to me, without smiling.

I politely laughed and said I wasn’t the dancing type either, so I understood why he didn’t want to dance. Years later, where I think about this, I can see Woody Allen with a dialog like I was saying.

Finally the man gave me a fierce look and said, “Butterball, I said dance!”

I again tried to explain that I wasn’t a good dancer and …. And again he said “Dance Butterball, dance!”

So, I said Okay, I said, so I said first let me go to the bathroom. I went straight by the men’s restroom and outside, ran and got in the car and got the hell out of there.

Mary the Wave

There were no females of our squadron of 300 plus men. We were in a seagoing helicopter squadron, so any of us was subject to be part of a helo crew on a ship at any time. It is probably not the case now, but then females did not go on sea duty.

On the base there were a bunch of Waves. They worked here and there in base operations. Some, and probably most were typists. Some worked at the little on base medical center and some worked in Special Services who ran the theater, bowling alley, library, and so on.

The waves’ barracks building was next to the base pool. Some times in the summer on Sunday afternoon we would go and hangout at the pool hoping some of the waves would come out and flirt with us. They came but hung out in a group.

I remember a black wave who I had sort of a crush on. She was a dental technician. She same so lady-like, so graceful, and so mysterious. She worked with a dentist, tall lean guy with premature gray hair, I always made my appointments with him.

Another wave, was alone many times at the E.M. Club. We noticed her like we noticed all waves, like eyes transfixed and focused on the nearest one. The wave was named Mary. We cleverly named her Mary the Wave.

Mary was masculine and had away about her that any egomaniac jock would envy. She walked as if she was a muscle bound man and was a loud mouth. In short, we had no interest in her.

Most of the waves we knew where they worked. We didn’t care where Mary worked.

One day at the E.M. Club one of us spoke to her which led to a long conversation. She came to our table. I think the big pitcher of beer sitting there attracted her. Before sitting down she went up to the bar and asked the bartender for an empty glass. After all, she had standards.

After drinking beer with Mary we found out she wasn’t she wasn’t such a bad gal. Well, she did let us know we had no chance at all of getting to first base with her and that she said in so many words and witty word play innuendos that she preferred women. Well, we couldn’t hold that against her, we also preferred women.

Mary became one of our regulars beer drinkers at our table at the E.M. Club. At least twice she slipped into the barracks with us holding the door for her and looking around to make sure the coast was clear.

She didn’t slip in the barracks with us to have a sexual love tumble. In each case it was time to close the E.M. Club and she wasn’t finished talking yet. When she started drinking she had plenty to say.

The first night she came to the barracks Don was on duty and could not go to the club. So, we slipped in Don’s cubical. As a joke she climbed in bed and hugged him. When he woke up and realized Mary was hugging him in bed he jumped.

The base also had a platoon or whatever a group is called of Marines. One day it heavily snowed. We were snowbound. We could not leave the base because of the driving conditions. The E.M. Club was more crowded than usual. A bunch of Marines were there being rowdy. I had already went back to the barracks so I heard this from Don: Don and Mary were having a talk about something, who remembers what, and at the next table the rowdy Marines were causing too much noise so Don told them to hold it down some. And they said something smart to him and Mary said something smart to them, and they said some smart to Mary and Don said something smart to them and one of the Marines decked him. The Marine gave him a good whamo which knocked him down. The only damage was a black eye and his ego.

Later Mary and I kidded him about defending her “honor”.

And another time I was on duty and her and Don played the same trick on me.

At the entrance of the E.M. Club was always a SP (security police) in uniform sitting at a little table. His job was to make sure no under-agers came in to drink and in general restore order in case disorder happens.

Next to him was a little hallway. In the hall was the door to the men’s restroom and the door to the women’s restroom.

One night, after all us males have left except one, that one kept drinking with Mary and see was in her abstract drinking and had a lot to say. She had to go to the restroom but she wasn’t finished talking.

So, she motioned for the male to come on with her to the women’s restroom. The guy refused, saying the SP will see him. She more or less jumped up and down and demanded that he come alone. Finally decided that first she would go and a few seconds later he would go, and the SP would assume that the guy would have naturally went to the Men’s room.

In a few seconds he found himself in the restroom. Mary hollered from a stall, “Over here!”

So, he walked over and stood outside the stall while Mary was making her deep points, driving her point home with the sound of farts and turds hitting the water.

After she wiped and flushed and she washed her hands.

Mary and the guy walked out. Facing them just outside the door of the SP with his arms folded, patiently waiting.

He checked their identification cards and told them to come with him. He had them climb in the back of a gray Naval van. Off they went. The guy expected him to turn left at on the main road towards the security office at the front gate. Instead he turn left towards the airfield. After he go so far out and the in the dark he pulled over.

The SP opened the van and told the guy to get up and drive and do not look in the back. He climbed inside the back with Mary. The guy drove and he could hear Mary in the back raving, screaming cursing, kicking, and hitting her advancer.

The guy drove for a minute or two and thought, “This is wrong, just plain wrong.”

He drove pulled onto the runway with all the lines of lights. He stopped the van, left the headlights on and got out and started walked away. After he got maybe ¼ mile or more away a moving light got his attention, he looked up, and three of four vehicles with their lights on, one a flashing light, were quickly approaching the parked van.

The next day Mary was laughing about it saying the SP was in trouble and she was going to press changes. We asked did he rape her, and she swatted her hand, like swatting a gnat and said, “Not hardly!”

I wonder what ever happened to Mary the Wave?